Gargantua and Pantagruel eBook

The Celts that once lived near the Rhine—­they
are our noble valiant French—­in ancient
times were also afraid of the sky’s falling;
for being asked by Alexander the Great what they feared
most in this world, hoping well they would say that
they feared none but him, considering his great achievements,
they made answer that they feared nothing but the sky’s
falling; however, not refusing to enter into a confederacy
with so brave a king, if you believe Strabo, lib.
7, and Arrian, lib. I.

Plutarch also, in his book of the face that appears
on the body of the moon, speaks of one Phenaces, who
very much feared the moon should fall on the earth,
and pitied those that live under that planet, as the
Aethiopians and Taprobanians, if so heavy a mass ever
happened to fall on them, and would have feared the
like of heaven and earth had they not been duly propped
up and borne by the Atlantic pillars, as the ancients
believed, according to Aristotle’s testimony,
lib. 5, Metaphys. Notwithstanding all this,
poor Aeschylus was killed by the fall of the shell
of a tortoise, which falling from betwixt the claws
of an eagle high in the air, just on his head, dashed
out his brains.

Neither ought you to wonder at the death of another
poet, I mean old jolly Anacreon, who was choked with
a grape-stone. Nor at that of Fabius the Roman
praetor, who was choked with a single goat’s
hair as he was supping up a porringer of milk.
Nor at the death of that bashful fool, who by holding
in his wind, and for want of letting out a bum-gunshot,
died suddenly in the presence of the Emperor Claudius.
Nor at that of the Italian buried on the Via Flaminia
at Rome, who in his epitaph complains that the bite
of a she-puss on his little finger was the cause of
his death. Nor of that of Q. Lecanius Bassus,
who died suddenly of so small a prick with a needle
on his left thumb that it could hardly be discerned.
Nor of Quenelault, a Norman physician, who died suddenly
at Montpellier, merely for having sideways took a
worm out of his hand with a penknife. Nor of
Philomenes, whose servant having got him some new figs
for the first course of his dinner, whilst he went
to fetch wine, a straggling well-hung ass got into
the house, and seeing the figs on the table, without
further invitation soberly fell to. Philomenes
coming into the room and nicely observing with what
gravity the ass ate its dinner, said to the man, who
was come back, Since thou hast set figs here for this
reverend guest of ours to eat, methinks it is but
reason thou also give him some of this wine to drink.
He had no sooner said this, but he was so excessively
pleased, and fell into so exorbitant a fit of laughter,
that the use of his spleen took that of his breath
utterly away, and he immediately died. Nor of
Spurius Saufeius, who died supping up a soft-boiled
egg as he came out of a bath. Nor of him who,
as Boccaccio tells us, died suddenly by picking his
grinders with a sage-stalk. Nor of Phillipot